20 December 2002

CONTENTS

Surroi: The present is in the hands of chief administrator, the future, in no one's (Koha Ditore)

Koha Ditore carries the third part of what it refers to as a Christmas letter from the paper's publisher, Veton Surroi, to SRSG Michael Steiner. Surroi wrote:

7. The story about electricity was necessary, because KEK consumed at least a quarter of all aid dedicated to Kosovo by the international community, but it also illustrates some of the main deficiencies of our society. As we saw, there is no energy policy in Kosovo; there is no vision for the coming years. While looking at the present, as we have already seen, the decision making on critical issue is done ad-hoc in the UNMIK chief administrator's office. The present is in UNMIK chief administrator's hands, the future is in no one's, is more or less the description of the situation in all other aspects of every day life and not only energy.
As we have already seen, this situation has created a chain of irresponsibility. The consumer isn't paying the spent electricity, because he is used to not doing this during the first year of post-war emergency, which released them from this obligation. Kosovo did not form the necessary legal instruments or they aren't implemented. KEK is a public utility, for which the public has no mechanism of control. The employees there feel that they work in a private enterprise, for the Kosovo Assembly and Kosovo Government it is an untouchable enterprise, and for UNMIK it is one of hundred things that they have to take care of during the day. And UNMIK more or less answers only to itself, or eventually to the two-day visits by the UN-SC delegation, where support is repeated religiously.
In these constellations, there are two existing fields of truth. The one above the surface and the structural one. The one above the surface belongs to UNMIK. We are having results in KEK, they say at UNMIK. Towns and villages are in darkness. Kosovo has formed institutions, says UNMIK. In reality these institutions have very little results.

8. This surface has caught up with you. In a private dinner in Washington with several noted journalists, you said that three years ago there was nothing in Kosovo, while now there are 105 banks with ATM machines where you can withdraw money very quickly. If you are looking from the perspective of the ordinary Kosovo citizen there is no place in Europe that compares to this image, that the citizen exists for the bank and not the bank for the citizen. There is no place in Europe where it is cheaper to put money in the bank and more expensive to withdraw it in form of a loan. Banks in Kosovo today are in the service of other banks, to withdraw the capital from Kosovo in the form of purchasing bonds at German banks, if only to provide a service to the needs of the bank owners. The success of the banks is a tale of the great Kosovo paradox: close to a billion euros of dead capital isn't being used by the banks and there isn't a single idea as how to ensure the necessary investments that would open new jobs.

9. You would say, that you aren't responsible for presenting the ideas for development, this is why Kosovo institutions were formed, and this is why Kosovars have their government and assembly. In principle, this is true, and moreover as you didn't form these organs, you found them when you arrived here.
Wanting or not, the notion that you have to deal with this political structure which you cannot escape makes you responsible. Kosovans were not capable of agreeing on forming the government and appointing the president, and you intervention here was decisive, not only in forming the government but also to make the working schedule. This brought several paradox situations: the first one was that the assembly didn't appoint the government nor did an agreement between parties and their mutual interest, but your decisive intervention. And as fate wants things to happen, you unblocked the situation that was potentially dangerous, because of the inability for an agreement could form a crisis between political entities, which didn't show very much love for each other. At the same time you became the one who constituted the government and the president. The people elected the assembly; you elected the government and the president. Your initial advantage rose and also with your working capacity, inventions, political experience and intellectual depth that left the local leaders looking like dwarfs.
Moreover, for the forming of such a wide coalition, we now have to look for the opposition in Kosovo: sometimes the papers take the position of the opposition, sometimes the Serbs take this role as opposition against the majority and sometimes the majority acts as opposition against UNMIK. The situation without an opposition has left the government to interpret the things that can or cannot be done and left us all baffled with audacity for the leaders of our institutions that like UNMIK are talking about the great results of their institutions. And as our politicians are, they can speak and do whatever they want, or not to speak or not to do anything.
Is it possible that they have nothing to do? It is not only the issue of the lack of opposition that has made our political life so inert. It is the fact that our institutions, after the initial shock, when they saw that they don't have offices, phones, faxes were faced with the lack of basic governing competencies: the right to collect and disperse public funds. The Kosovo Government isn't even responsible for collecting or allocating taxes or other public funds. Your office (again another council) decides as to how much taxes are we going to pay (and who is going to pay it) and again your office decides how the government will spend these funds.
Several vicious circles are formed. The first one is loss of belief in democracy. If I elect a deputy in the assembly and he doesn't know and cannot decide where the taxpayer's money is going, then why do we have to elect deputies to assemblies?
The second is the low projection of needs and possibilities: if in continuity UNMIK office allocates a low budget, it will in continuity be satisfied that the economic activity is big enough only to fulfill this low budget. Kosovo, which fills its small budget from customs taxes, doesn't create any kind of economic system that would support local production or a tax discipline by the citizens. With such low economic aims and lack of competencies neither the government nor the assembly understand the importance of package bills, that would ensure, for example a fiscal discipline or equalizing the interest rates in banks with those in other European countries.
The third circle: the weakening of key segments of public administering, education and health, especially at the moment when they should be reformed. A government that doesn't control public funds cannot ask to manage with them either. In today's Kosovo somehow the only segments that function right are the ones that aren't dependent on UNMIK governing: in education, private education. In health, private clinics. In public administration, private money, which buys the efficient service of a public servant. Very soon to be attacked are the police, judges and KPC.

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Shala: No differences (Zëri)

Zëri carries a report of Blerim Shala, discussing the electricity problems in Kosovo.

It is not clear who is more frustrated, Kosovo's citizens, the Assembly of Kosovo, or UNMIK. It is very well known, who is benefiting from this situation: the generator-, candle-, and neon-salespeople. It is very easy to get to the point: Kosovo continues to have big problems with electricity.

Contrary to further prognoses, this December, which is going to have lower and worse temperatures than last year's, shows that there is no electricity stabilization. KEK apologized once, but never fulfilled the given promises! Citizens haven't understood yet why they should pay the bills. Or maybe, because there is less and less electricity supply, they think that this should be paid proportionally to the used electricity. Like never before, it seems that UNMIK and Kosovo's Government could highlight this problem.

Kosovo politicians, selected Parliamentarians, also Steiner with his team, understood that KEK could cause big problems between citizens and Government. Because of this, each of them is aware that they have to prove to the people of Kosovo that they are doing something to change this bad situation. The first attempt, which happened this Thursday, was about that "darkness" should be fought by competencies, concretely, by reminding who is to blame for this. The average Kosovo citizen will not be so interested in this duel, as this does not bring him enough electricity. It would be better to see a "partnership for light" to be created, and not a continuation of the confrontation of the competencies.

When the electricity is off, a Kosovo citizen blames everyone: with no differences.

Why Steiner refused an appointment with Covic (Zëri)

According to Zëri, yesterday in Prishtina UNMIK chief, Michael Steiner, refused to receive the Serb Deputy Prime Minister and Serb Coordinator for Kosovo Nebojsa Covic. The appointment was then delayed.

The reason for this cancellation may be found in Covic's latest declarations in the Serb media, where he announced the forming of the Council for UNMIK's Administration in Northern Mitrovica. It is known, according to Steiner's Plan for Mitrovica, that on the Northern side UNMIK is the only Government and it must have a Council structured by local politicians. On his pronunciations for the Serb media, Covic mentioned only six politicians from different parties, all of which were Serbs.

According to Covic's declarations, it appears that he (and the Serb Regime in Belgrade), decides who is going to represent Serbs on this Council. And this Council will be made only by Serb politicians. According to this conclusion, Covic's aspirations are to legalize the Municipality of North Mitrovica.

All these pushed Mr. Steiner to refuse this appointment with Covic.

According to these sources, it comes up that only Steiner and UNMIK can decide (not Covic), for forming the above mentioned Council and its ethnic structure will not be what Covic wants it to be. On this Council will be Albanian, Serbian and Bosnian politicians, because it is known that in Northern Mitrovica live Bosnians, too.

In any case, Covic's presentations can complicate the process on forming of this Council in Northern Mitrovica.

On the political crises in Serbia, Covic held a very important position as Coordinator for Kosovo.

However, since Mr. Steiner's arrival in Kosovo as Chief of UNMIK, Covic's and Steiner's relationships are covered with tensions and political antagonism.

"The executive order": (doesn't) is in a contradiction with the European Convention for the Human Rights (Zëri Weekly)

Zëri Weekly ran an interview with UNMIK's spokesperson Eleanor Beardsley and Kosovo's Ombudsperson Marek Antoni Nowicki by its reporter Agron Shala in which they were asked on the executive order and on their opinion on the UNMIK arrests.

Z: How would you comment the "executive order" applied by Kosovo's SRSG to arrest and keep detained some people (that were later released), suspected for acts on terrorism?

Beardsley: First of all, the SRSG Michael Steiner has never used an "executive order". The only executive orders were used by Hans Haekkerup and were applied for the suspects on the "Nis Express". The reason is that they were used then is because UNMIK had security information from the national governments, information that wasn't admissible in court. On the basis of this, UNMIK held the suspects in the purpose for the investigation to proceed. To ensure the fairness of the executive orders, independent judges were brought in to examine the evidence and decide if the suspects could continue to be held under executive order. This is how it goes, and this has happened.

Nowicki: My opinion is this, and this I've mentioned also before, the privation of the freedom, in whatever administrative order basis, that in context of Kosovo's "executive order" of the SRGS, are in contradiction with the European Convention for Human Rights, the V clause. My remark due to this, I've expressed from the beginning, officially, in the special report number 3, which had to do with the arrests, in the basis of this order, the three persons suspected in the so called "the exploration phase of the Nis Express". In this Report I've stressed, over all, in my opinion, there doesn't exist any required legal basis for the SRSG to undertake such decisions. Today in Kosovo there are no more people that are kept in detention under the order - executive. Naturally, I'm not talking here about the arrests of the KFOR, because that is another issue. However, today every person, has the right of an imprisonment in Kosovo, is to be kept in detention in basis of legal decision and not with the "executive order". And this is huge difference, compared with the later.

Z: What is your opinion about the arrested people, which has been changed many times of the international prosecutors in Kosovo - while keeping them detained - charges against them?

Beardsley: The ones who are today detained aren't detained under the "executive order". They have been held in detention for the reason of enough evidence against them. This is a normal procedure in western countries when people are held before the trial and without bail. In the cases where people are held now, the prosecutor has made a request to the judge and the legal process has been adhered to.

Nowicki: The possibility exists that the accusations will change or even be modified. The main thing is that the persons that the accusations has been raised against, must always have the main condition to practice their right to defend themselves. The persons must regardless of the accusation, have the opportunity to react, to perform and present the defense, to have all of their legal rights.
The change in the accusation isn't a big issue, if you have the right to be defended.
Naturally, the person in question has to be clear on the situation, so what he is accused of, because this gives him the possibility of realistic grounds to react on every element, on every account of the accusations.

Z: Was the dignity of these arrested people been damaged, because they were kept for months detained and in the end they are released as innocent? How can moral and material damage be compensating this for them?

Beardsley: When it comes to the defilement of their dignity that has been kept (under detention and later been released as innocent), all I can say is that they were lucky that they don't live in Texas, where many people, convicted by mistake, have spent many years on death row and even been executed. In the west, when people are held by mistake and later released, the system doesn't guarantee compensation, this is the same in Kosovo. However they can make a request to the committee (for the wrongly accused and wrongly detained) that is created within the civil administration UNMIK, which decides whether they should get compensation.

Nowitzki: Compensation is something natural. Person that was kept under detention and if this person was acquitted (declared innocent by the court because of lack of evidence, etc) or if the indictment was refused during court procedure or investigation process, this person has need for compensation, based on overall regulations that are applicable here and can also be found in the Yugoslav penal code that is still applicable in Kosovo. Naturally we can deal here with an acquittal or a decision to end investigative criminal procedure, without raising an indictment of the person at court. When the case is at court, the only way to end the case is when there is insufficient evidence for as trail, and everything ends in an acquittal. In such cases the doors are opened to a person to request compensation and for all other damages caused. For example if the person was dismissed from work and if this is tied directly with the case, he has the right to return to his old job. When we have an acquittal all the negative consequences of the procedure must be compensated. When forgiveness is demanded from UNMIK, according to you this is what former detained demand because their dignity was blemished, I would say that decision for release is made public; the court publicly declares the person innocent. In a way this is sufficient, because they are publicly declared innocent. Compensation is another matter, material or other damages that depend form one case to the other. Compensation is done with money. It is said that money is not enough, however in reality this is how compensation is done. There are such provisions everywhere in the world and UNMIK must follow these standards, not only of the former Yugoslav law, but also of European laws, as it is the case with article 5, paragraph 5 of the Convention of Human Rights that deal with issues of a person detained without a legal basis.

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UNMIK sentenced liberators; freedom and blood cannot be sentenced (Koha Ditore)

Koha Ditore reported that protests against convicting of "Dukagjin Group" took place in Deçan/Decani on Thursday.

"We are today raising our voices against the conviction against our brothers without basis and unjust", said Egzon Gashi, one of the organizer of the council.

The decision of the juristic community of UNMIK Gashi has described as "continuing of organized crime against the Albanian population, even though they called this as a process in the name of justice and tolerance"

"UNMIK sentenced Kosovo's liberators, but the freedom and the blood cannot be sentenced", the protesters acclaimed in the crowd.

The organizers of the protest appealed to the citizens around Kosovo to join them in this protest.

"If we don't protect the values of our war, we then don't have the right to complain to anyone", said Gashi, adding that "UNMIK doesn't understand our democratic demands therefore we must give them our fist that they deserve and for them who continues the discriminated politic of Milosevic".

The crowd then continued to cheer: "Don't touch our KPC, because we'll return to KLA".

"In the 35th protest that we organized, we are creating freedom for our best brothers of this country", said the chairman at the Council of Organizer, and former superior officer of KLA, Avdyl Mushkolaj, by putting "general Daut Haradinaj at the top of the liberators as the one who sacrificed the freedom of this enslaved people", meaning the Kosovars.

Mushkolaj said that they have demanded justice, but it seems like justice doesn't exists in Kosovo.

"The hard injustice happened on 17 December by the judges at Pristina against the liberators of freedom, this is the hardest abortion and biggest unjust conviction of the International Community in Kosovo", Mushkolaj said.

"Their decision against the soldiers of KLA showed the opposite, that the trial and the decision was one unilateral and in the end it showed that it was a made up process", Mushkolaj told Koha Ditore.

The Council of Organizer appealed to all of the Kosovar organs, the government, the parliament, and political parties and to all of governmental institutions governmental and non-governmental of the United States, those who wants the good of the Kosovars, to demand a retrial of the decision based on made up politic.

"We will not allowed for history to repeat it self, we are therefore here today and we are ready to die", says the director of the high school "Vëllezërit Frashëri, Selim Lokaj.

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